Furniture and construction materials processed with formalin, adhesives containing formalin as a hardening agent, goods made of formaldehyde resins, leather goods tanned with formalin, clothes treated with formalin as a sterilzier or a bleaching agent, and the like are frequently utilized in daily life. As a result, there are many opportunities for conventional photographic light-sensitive materials to be brought into contact with formaldehyde gas released from these commonly used items.
In general, a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material is composed of a support having coated thereon silver halide emulsion layers each of which has sensitivity in a different region of the spectrum and each of which contains a coupler capable of reacting with an oxidation product of a color developing agent to form a dye. For example, conventionally a color photographic light-sensitive material contains silver halide emulsion layers each of which is sensitive to blue light, green light or red light and contains a yellow coupler, a magenta coupler or a cyan coupler, respectively. After exposure to light, the photographic material is subjected to color development processing to form yellow, magenta and cyan color dye images in these silver halide emulsion layers, respectively. In such a multilayer color photographic light-sensitive material, each silver halide emulsion layer should be well balanced with respect to sensitivity and gradation in order to obtain an excellent color image. It is also desirable that the photographic properties of the photographic material are not changed during long periods of storage either before or after exposure to light until it is subjected to color development processing.
However, when a conventional silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material is brought into contact with formaldehyde gas before color development processing, not only is the coupler incorporated therein consumed by the reaction with formaldehyde but an undesirable product is also formed. As a result, degradation of the photographic properties, for example, a decrease in color density, an increase in color stain and fog, etc., occurs. The degradation of photographic properties due to formaldehyde gas is serious with the so-called 4-equivalent couplers having an active methylene group. Particularly, magenta couplers tend to be adversely affected by formaldehyde.
It has been proposed that a compound which reacts with formaldehyde be incorporated into a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material containing a coupler for the purpose of preventing the degradation of photographic properties due to formaldehyde gas. However, known compounds for preventing the degradation of photographic properties due to formaldehyde gas in silver halide color photographic light-sensitive materials which contain an oil-soluble 4-equivalent magenta coupler, as described in Japanese Patent Publication Nos. 34675/71, 38418/73 and 23908/76, U.S. Pat. No. 3,770,431, Research Disclosure, Vol. 101, RD-10133, etc., only have a limited ability to fix formaldehyde gas. Therefore, adequate prevention of the degradation of the photographic properties cannot be obtained. Further, when such compounds are used in a large amount, a disadvantage is encountered in that the film properties of the photographic light-sensitive material are degraded.
In order to prevent the degradation of the film properties, it has been proposed to load an oleophilic compound into a polymer latex as described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 59943/76 and 126830/81 (the term "OPI" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined Japanese patent application"), etc. However, such a method has a disadvantage in that the thickness of the emulsion layer increases which results in degradation of sharpness.